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A bit of perspective

Not gonna lie — I jiggle my belly at myself in the mirror sometimes. I think it’s neat. So I was jiggling my belly at myself in the mirror yesterday and I thought “it would be some people’s worst nightmare to look like this.”

That sounds like it’s going to a bad place, right? Except that the next thought was “god, are they wusses or WHAT? That’s their worst nightmare? What about manticores?”

Heh, yes they are. I didn’t actually watch it — although I did attempt to watch one of the gargoyle movies out of boredom and semi-insomnia one night. It fell into that sad place in between “so very awful” and “not awful enough to be funny.” I gave it up after a few minutes.

Exactly, O.C.! OH NOES, BIG UNDERWEAR. If I encountered a polymorph and it turned into big underwear, I would be so fucking embarrassed. You seriously can’t find anything else to be terrified of? Seriously?

I think like that all the time, I laugh (internally, of course) at my friends when they stress about gaining 2 pounds on their size 2 frames becuase I can’t imagine what it’s like to worry about getting fat when you’re not. I’ve always been this way, I’ll likely always be this way, give or take.

I sometimes feel GRATEFUL to be fat because of all the time my thin friends waste stressing about it.

Yeah, and you know what? I’m a size 10 and it would be some people’s worst nightmare to look like me. I have a very dear friend who I’m fairly convinced would cut down on her house-leaving and never have sex if she looked like me. So fuck THAT line of reasoning all to hell. We’ve got . . . medieval creatures . . . to contend with.

I love to play with my sweetie’s jiggly spots (nothing sexual there, though I love those spots too.) Thing is, sweetie always has something sarcastic to say, like I couldn’t POSSIBLY really like the flopsy bits, and if so, there’s something wrong with me. Whatever, I guess I’m a chubby-chaser. Make that a chubby chubby- chaser.

And so true! I think that sort of thing all the time too – “Your worst fear is getting fat? Seriously? So, you just don’t have an imagination at all then, do you? Be glad you don’t live in my brain, bub – you’d piss yourself twice and die of fright.”

I saw the Sci-Fi’s attempt at manticores, and spent most of the movie yelling at the screen, “It’s supposed to have a human head, dammit! Get your research right!” Yes, I am annoyed when cheesy monster movies don’t get their monsters right…

The whole ‘being fat is my worst nightmare’ thing? Really bugs me. Losing my loved ones is a nightmare. World war is a nightmare. Spiders weilding syringes crawling on my face is a nightmare. Being ‘fat’? Not even close.

Just read the priorities link and wow, it sounded so familiar. I realized two years ago that I can lose weight. All it takes is eating 1000 calories a day and intense exercise for at least 1 hour a day. With this method I can lose a couple of pounds a month. Last year I realized….it’s not worth it to me.

If you want to see a halfway decent gargoyle movie, seek out Gargoyles, a 1973 ABC TV movie of the week. And the 80’s Twilight Zone episode where Adrienne Barbeau turns into a gargoyle. That scared me to death as a kid the first time I watched it.

My husband is fairly skinny all over except for a very round potbelly (it’s his genetic heritage; everyone on his dad’s side of the family, including the women, has the potbelly). I LOVE giving his potbelly a squeeze and a kiss. It doesn’t really jiggle, though; it’s the most solid potbelly I’ve ever seen. I’m the jiggly one in our relationship. :)

Years and years ago, I saw what looked like a children’s show about Ganesha on an international UHF channel in the Bay Area. It was in one or another of the Indian languages and not subtitled so I have no clue what it might’ve been about — except, whatever it was, it featured many scenes of Ganesha shaking his belly with both hands, waggling his trunk, and laughing himself into fits.

There’s an Alli commercial that’s been running for a while, featuring a “pharmacist” who was “HORRIFIED” at seeing a photo of herself, so she immediately grabbed that wonder drug Alli and thereby was able to lose all of 26 pounds.

Really? 26 pounds makes you “horrified”? Wow, you fail.

And me, I’d think voluntarily taking a drug that would give me greasy shits would be horrifying.

Ok this might be a downer after all the hilarious Red Dwarf and mythological creature references, but here goes!

I wonder if most people fear the perceived social results of being fat more than the actual fat itself, or if the two are so interlinked that people can’t seperate them.

Personally, I have no problem with my size. Not that I’m huge – 5′ and Australian size 12. It just doesn’t bother me, never really has – probably because my mum has been big my whole life and I never saw her diet or not do something that she wanted, and I never saw anyone treat her badly because of it.

However, my size has become an issue because of my husband (please don’t say nasty things about him!). It’s a long story, and we’re still working on it, but basically for me, being overweight has become conflated (is that the right word?) with losing my marriage. So in fact it’s not the fat I fear at all, but the failure of a relationship as a result of it.

Hmmm not really sure what my point is any more!

Also, my biggest fear is probably what happens to the Cat in Red Dwarf, when they’re leaving the backwards version of Earth. Saw that episode on the weekend…. *shudder*

I don’t always like my fat, or my body. Certainly, I play with my belly, but it depends on the day whether I do it because I find it silly and fun, or because I feel trapped under layers of angst that have manifested into physical tissue so that others can SEE my angst and worse, add to it with their own bullshit.

But I agree that there are far worse things to be afraid of! There’s the fear I could go back to being skinny, but sick and miserable and convinced I was fat and ugly (I looked amazing, if a bit sickly, but couldn’t enjoy it anyway, so what’s the damn point? I’d rather feel like I do now than look like I did then, which is why I vowed never to get into that particular brand of self-punishment again).

Or, I could continue to find really bad-for-me fellows and get into equally bad-for-me relationships for the rest of forever instead of finding a relationship that would be good for my life (or learning to be forever contented to be single, one or the other, and at this point I’m not sure I care which).

Or, I could get into a REALLY bad relationship and get hurt, and not just the usual made-me-cry variety. :P Now THAT’S something to fear.

Manticores, of course, are creepy as all get-out. But you might be able to escape one. A basilisk, on the other hand, will turn you right to stone just by looking at him. SCARY.

Being hit by a car.

Not getting in to grad school.

Having to live at home forever.

My dog dying.

Now THOSE are things to be afraid of. Staying in this fat body? I can handle that shit.

they stress about gaining 2 pounds on their size 2 frames becuase I can’t imagine what it’s like to worry about getting fat when you’re not.

I saw a tabloid in the checkout line — what? I really gave those up a long time ago — and some celebrity was crowing about having lost twenty-two pounds. And I thought that’s what you’re worried about? Twenty-two pounds? It just showed me how much I am out of that loop. And also that if they had to live in my body they’d probably cry. But fuck ’em. No sense of perspective, you know?

Also, my worst nightmare was a semi-lucid dream in which I was being chased by a serial killer who wanted to stab me to death and I was able to control my actions in the dream and return to previous points before he stabbed me but never able to do anything that would stop him from killing me. Being fat has nothing on that, for serious.

Heh. You want scary? Chaperone a middle school field trip. There is NOTHING in this universe or any other that compares to being trapped on a bus full of 11-14yo kids for 21 hours. Nothing. This body certainly isn’t! I can’t help but laugh at people who are half my size or smaller and actually tell me how scared they are that they might reach X arbitrary weight (which is *always* 100lbs+ less than me). WTFever.

Also, I actually spent NYE discussing zombie uprising with a friend… his theory is “set everything you can see on fire and then run away.” He also broke down why zombies are scary but I wasn’t paying attention because I was drunk and thinking about Dinosaur Comics’ theory about why they aren’t.

The wedding ruined me for keeping track of who knows whom, because so many people from totally disparate parts of my life turned out to be meeting and socializing with each other while my back was turned.

My worst nightmare bar none was one I had about being trapped inside my body unable to move or speak but wanting to live, hearing the doctors assure my husband they’d take good care of me, him leaving to go get some sleep, and them turning off my life support and leaving me in the dark to die. I still get squicked thinking about it.

HP Lovecraft, on the other hand, I felt was highly amusing…

ROUS’s! Run! Don’t forget to avoid the quicksand! Or at least have a handy vine at the ready!

You know what is, like, a zillion time scarier than being or getting fat? The little old lady in the season 6 episode of Buffy called “Doublemeat Palace”, with the demon thing that comes out of the top of her head and sprays paralyzing poison at you and then eats you alive. And those weren’t even particularly great special effects, so.

Gah! Just when I thought getting through life without fearing that spiders could ever reach Harry Potter-esque size would be nightmare enough; now I have MANTICORES to worry about!?!? Like someone else I had to look that up and crap man; they are SO not like the Preying Mantis critters I thought they were. Frick.

Also? Nightmarish was the mostly silent episode of Buffy with those floating pale doctor dudes that would just cut you up while you screamed in silence. Or that creepy dude that would sit on the chest of weak children or sick people and suck their life force out through a nasty tape-worm-esque tube with teeth. *shudders*

Most of my dreams however seem to be about fearing…fear I guess. They are usually me in a room with SOMETHING unseen and the lights won’t turn on. I flip the switch back and forth and NO LIGHTS! Gah. Stupid dark.

On the jiggly aspect, I love it when I can get the contents of my stomach to slosh around so it sounds like a little mini ocean in my belly :D

Thanks to you FJ, I learned what manticores are. I think they look kinda cute. They remind me of my cat, Mama, who was seen eating three of her kittens prior to her rescue. I’m sorry but anything cats do- up to and including matricide- is highly amusing for me.

Anywho, I was glad I read this while doing my light therapy and breakfast. As an ‘apple’ shaped person (ZOMG teh death fat) my stomach has been my nemesis since I was a child. The media’s obsession with abdominal fat doesn’t help. So I don’t find its presence on my body funny at all. But, it is good to hear someone positively about something that I’m so neurotic about.

No shit Philosopher! The Apocalypse! I had to watch this movie about the end times at my church when I was about 11. Apparently my parents weren’t aware that the religious equivalent of Friday the 13th was being shown for that service.

According to this movie, people would have barcodes on their foreheads, people would just disappear, cars would be abandoned. Holy crap! I’m 31 now and I still think ‘what if they’ve been raptured!?’ if I can’t find a family member etc.

I totally do the belly shake in the mirror thing, thought I was the only one. It’s fun to see it jiggle. My husband and I are very silly people. We have slogans like “Tummy love is the best love, tummies KNOW!” and “Lawful wedded tummies!” Probably the best contribution to the fat acceptance movement I’ve ever made was convincing DH that I loved his tummy, and found him sexually BECAUSE he’s fat, not despite it. He’s the only fat person in his surviving family. It has been hard on him. It totally transformed his body image.

The best thing about being undeniably fat is that I never have to worry about being fat or looking fat. Ever. I buy the warmest coat no matter how big it is. I eat whatever I want. I honestly don’t give a shit when people glare at me for using the scooter cart, assuming that I’ve “let myself go” instead of that I have a degenerative muscle disease entirely unrelated to my weight. People never do the annoying, “I’m not talking about YOU, I’m talking about really fat people, and I’d never say you were fat.” thing. Dude, I’m fat. It does amaze me how some people talk about weight right in front of me – “Wow, I hafta join weight watchers, my ass is GINORMOUS in these size seven pants.” “Fat people are just lazy and have no willpower.” THERE IS A FAT PERSON SITTING RIGHT HERE, FOLKS – you might want to STFU.

I think that this is one of the great benefits of getting fat that doesn’t get mentioned enough. When you are fat you can give up being scared of fat. I am fat and I lived to tell about it! And I don’t have to suck in my stomach at the pool anymore(it would be futile). It is actually kind of freeing.

And talking of fear, I didn’t sleep for 2 nights after watching “The Ghost and the Darkness” about the human-eating lions of Tsavo that the natives thought were demons. My husband tried to convince me that I didn’t need to worry since we lived in Chicago but I would not be comforted.

We just got a hilarious douchehound comment, which I sent to spam (my new thing instead of just deleting — it’s satisfying to train Akismet, who I picture as looking like this, to eat trolls), in which the guy helpfully explained that what he’s really afraid of is women getting fat. Because he might not want to fuck them, but he might have already married them, and they might take his stuff. I probably should have saved it, it was really worth jeering at… maybe I’ll go fish it out of Akismet’s gullet. Anyway, the point is that of course, as randomquorum pointed out, people aren’t just scared of fat — they’re scared of women, or they’re scared of death (which is actually a rational fear!), or whatever. We know that, because as summer just pointed out, we don’t have to fear fat, which gives one remarkable clarity on the issue! But people who abject their fear of something else onto fat don’t realize they’re doing it — they genuinely think fat is horrific. (When you fear enormous spiders or the Apocalypse it’s also essentially a fear of death or pain.) It’s only when you can see through that that it becomes obvious how absurd it is.

That is definitely some high-quality douchehound. Let’s see, what is he afraid of…perhaps that his acceptance of unrealistic standards of beauty and valuing women primarily for their fuckability might come back to bite him in the ass?

I think that this is one of the great benefits of getting fat that doesn’t get mentioned enough. When you are fat you can give up being scared of fat.

Totally. Sort of a dark turn to this convo, but not too long after my mom died, I was talking to a professor of mine about it, and he said (appropriately, given the context — this wasn’t horribly insensitive), “Isn’t it sort of liberating to know that your worst fear from childhood has come to pass, and you’re still here?”

Man, did that stick with me. Because yeah, probably for most of my life at that point (I was 25), my mom’s death had been my single greatest fear. And there it was, and there I was. Huh.

Man if I have a nightmare tonight about “The Gentlemen” riding around an eerily silenced town on the backs of ravenous Manticores and car-sized spiders I’m totally coming back here to cry about it tomorrow ;)

I can’t stand frogs. Ever since my mother showed me a place in the backyard where a bunch of them were hopping around and one landed on my foot, seeing one in person gives me the creeps. And the bigger they are, the more creeped out I get. So when I watched a horror movie called “Frogs,” of course, I cringed the whole way through it.

What’s funny though is that in high school, I had no problem dissecting one. And when it came time to dissect the fetal pig, I was chosen to make the first slice and pull all the body parts out of it.

Bees. Oh god. I got married outside, and I was scared that a bee would land on me, because I knew I would bolt from the alter if it did. Fortunately, that did not come to pass, and we did manage to get married…

Okay, thanks wikipedia for too many pictures (I just wanted information, but I didn’t want to SEE them!), but now I know that those gigantic ones that CATCH BATS MID-FLIGHT are in South America, Trinidad, and Jamaica. So I will never go caving there.

The Lions of Tsavo are there, stuffed, in the field museum! The one under the stairs is huge and scared the pants off me with its glass eyed stare, I didn’t even know lions were that freaking big! I was scared because of imagining what it was like for the guy the plaque on the wall described… how it WENT INTO HIS HOUSE, killed him, and then paraded around with a laundry bag it took from the place (which prompted the idea it was really a wizard, witch, or demon).

I’d much rather look at myself naked in a full-length mirror than look at almost anything reptilian. I’m such a wimp. (Though I’ll admit my fat ankles caught me off guard in shadow form the other morning… “Wow. Hmmm. If I look at these from another angle… wow. Seriously fat ankles, here.”)

On the troll issue – I imagine for some people having someone’s body change drastically would be scary. After all, if my husband was in an accident and lost a leg, it’d be scary. Though I don’t think I’ll be fearing that if he does lose his leg in a terrible accident that he will then leave and take all my stuff….

Okay, that would be pretty bad. I basically do not want the lab monkeys in control of anything, because they will take their hideous revenge on humanity for all these years of experimentation. I mean, wouldn’t you?

I’d like to nominate mad scientists as being high on my personal “things which I am more afraid of than being fat” list. But then again, I’m a mad-keen Final Fantasy VII fan, and the mad scientist in that one really *is* terrifying. But jiggly fat isn’t something that’s high on my list of scary things anyway – I *like* my jiggles, particularly when I’m shimmying.

Oh, and the aliens from the Alien movies. Now those are scary beggars.

PS: ETA: The monsters are not fucking. OR AT LEAST THEY WEREN’T UNTIL I SAID THAT

Not since pre-puberty have I been anything even close to skinny, but I’ve been the same weight/size…until now. In the past year and a half, I put on ten pounds, which isn’t anything terrible in the grand scheme of things, but I think it signals other, worse lifestyle habits that maybe need correcting. I recently announced my plan to lose those pounds (and maybe a few extra if I can handle it- I love food!) to the guy I’m dating, and he said, “That’s a good goal to have, but why would you when you’re so scrumptious now?” Best thing he could have said, ever! Scrumptious, delicious, wonderful jiggles…

I love you guys, seriously! These comments are the best! I am going to make it a point to jiggle my belly every day. There is also the Chubster greeting when you and your fat friend or partner grab each other’s love handles and give them a good jiggle up and down, saying “Chub chub chub!” Now that always makes me and Mr Peachy giggle!

To the aussie lady who said that she is ‘overweight’ at an aussie size twelve, surely that is actually still less than the ‘average’ size for women? How can it also be ‘overweight’?

“The gentlemen” from Buffy come close to my scariest too, and also a zombie episode of twilight that still sticks with me fromchildhood, where he had to try to sew up the mouth with salt to stop it, and it woke up…Eeeek! Way scarier than TEH FATZ!

I had to follow the book link to the How to Profit from the Rapture when you are left behind… I died! Like Valerie one of my fears of teenagerdom was being left behind. It was like only a matter of luck if it was going to be horrific death by a Nuke strike (Reagan’s finger was on that big red button!) or horrific death and suffering for ETERNITY from the rapture (because being a fatty, I’m sure I wasn’t good enough to be ‘saved’). Thankfully those days have moved on so the book link was a hoot and a laugh and I thank you for sharing!

And then there was the Zombie survival guide. Laugh out loud funny!

I’m not gunna share my biggest fear because it’s too scary… but it’s way scarier than being fat.

RedSonja, what about that bit in The Girl in the Fireplace where he points out the clock is broken, so what’s making the ticking sound? Typing that actually did make me feel a little bit sick. Fucking TERRIFYING.